Writing on his blog Wednesday while reporting from southern Lebanon, freelance journalist and Time magazine contributor Christopher Allbritton, in what almost looked to be a throw-away line, relayed that “To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hezbollah is launching Katyushas, but I’m loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist’s passport, and they’ve already hassled a number of us and threatened one.” (Emphasis ours.)
This jogged our memory of some reports earlier in the week about how journalists are getting around parts of Lebanon, and how Hezbollah is trying to shape the coverage.
One was an exchange on Howard Kurtz’s Reliable Sources show on CNN, in which Kurtz interviewed CNN’s Nic Robertson about reporting from Lebanon. Just a few days before, Hezbollah minders had taken Robertson on a tour of a neighborhood in southern Beirut that had been hit by Israeli missiles.
Robertson told Kurtz, “Hezbollah has a very, very sophisticated and slick media operation,” and in southern Beirut, “they deny journalists access into those areas. They can turn on and off access to hospitals in those areas.”
He also said that Hezbollah “designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn’t have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath … Hezbollah is now running a number of [press tours] every day, taking journalists into this area. They realize that this is a good way for them to get their message out, taking journalists on a regular basis.”
This is a tricky issue, disclosure-wise, but in his initial report of July 18, Robertson did tell viewers at the start that “We went in to those southern suburbs of Beirut with that media representative from Hezbollah. They haven’t let western reporters into some parts of that very, very, very carefully controlled southern suburbs … they took us in because they wanted to show us what was being damaged.” He then ended by again reminding viewers that it was a “very, very brief and swift tour escorted by Hezbollah.” The disclosure that Hezbollah acted as tour guide does put the report into perspective, but still, Robertson could have dwelled a bit more on the calculated photo op CNN’s cameras were provided by an obviously interested party. But given that he filed the report from the middle of a very hot war zone, we’re willing to cut him some slack and give him points for broaching the subject of Hezbollah’s PR initiative at the top, and at the end, of his report.
Anderson Cooper followed up this past Monday with a similar report, telling viewers that “we found ourselves with other foreign reporters taken on a guided tour by Hezbollah … They only allowed us to videotape certain streets, certain buildings.”
“This is a heavily orchestrated Hezbollah media event. When we got here, all the ambulances were lined up. We were allowed a few minutes to talk to the ambulance drivers. Then one by one, they’ve been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians … These ambulances aren’t responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect.”
Reporting from a war zone almost invariably entails certain moral or ethical compromises made on the fly that are, more often than not, necessary. If being led around by Hezbollah “press officers” is the only way for reporters to tour bomb-damaged neighborhoods in Beirut, so be it — as long as they disclose as much. Cooper did, and in the process pulled the curtain back on a tragi-comic scene that seems just as PR-savvy as it does sickeningly calculated.
Just as disturbing, and so far flying under the radar, is Allbritton’s report that Hezbollah has copies of reporters’ passports, and may be using that as leverage over them. This in no way means that reporters are being swayed by the terrorist group, but it does bring the question of intimidation, and journalists’ ability to report freely, into focus.
I read this and I really wonder why the reporters even bother to report this stuff at all. Why not just let Hezbollah propaganda unit do the reporting instead. If what you are reporting is not the truth, then you are not a reporter, you are a propagandist. Better not to report at all than to have all your reports say just what the propaganda organ wants you to say.
The part that then bothers me is that let us say your protectors suddenly take against you and imprison you and get ready to torture you. Would you as a reporter expect the same people you have been reporting against to put themselves in harms way to rescue you after you have spent days and weeks filing false reports against them? If you were in their place would you put yourself in harms way to rescue someone who had done to you what you have done to them?
That was the question brought up in the famous broadcast of Mike Wallace and Peter jennings and the colonel who brought it up said he would put him men in harms way to rescue you but that he had utter contempt for you for what you had done. I think he is right. I am not sure I would even rescue you but I would surely have total contempt for you for what you did. You debased your profession and yourself and your news organization by reporting as you did, although apparently there are some organizations (** cough ** CNN) who would go along with this.
Posted by dick on Fri 28 Jul 2006 at 09:01 PM
Hezbollah press officers? Too bad the native american indians didn't have them at every massacre. If only they had been more media aware.
Leaving that aside, the article is entirely impossible to parse. Except for the funky smell.
cfm
Posted by dryki on Fri 28 Jul 2006 at 10:40 PM
McLeary You're pulling my leg? While you may have a point it seems to me you have to put it into context. Assuming that Israel is the argressor, and most certainly the are now. How are The Israelies handling the press (hint - their record is not good). Israel has killed at least one journalist and maimed a couple of others, so far (see http://www.ptarmigannest.net/?p=70). What's your point. Hezbollah is doing nothing more than any other political organization would try to do here or elsewhere; hell it happens everyday in NYC.
Posted by CityKid on Sat 29 Jul 2006 at 07:17 AM
CityKid - isn't the point that professional reporters should state when they are under reporting restrictions or guidance by their hosts ? ( British reporters did in the Gulf War II, but aren't from Lebanon ).
Posted by Man in a Shed on Thu 3 Aug 2006 at 12:25 PM
Any time a reporter is restricted from filming something they should disclose that. Being restricted from filming something is done all of the time, to protect the identity of someone, for security reasons, and for many other reasons. And a reporter should clearly state these restrictions and why. I saw Nic Robertson and almost didn’t catch his disclosure, and I watch for them. I was actually mad after watching it, because I knew most people did not catch it. ( I sent a email to CNN about this, as it was easy to be mislead about this story). I also saw Anderson Cooper follow up a few days later, and it was real clear, as how much control he had on reporting what he was reporting on.
Hezbollah is running a very heavy propaganda war, hell this is a kind of war that the terrorist are best at. And to believe almost anything a terrorist organization tell you, other then, “they hate and want to kill you” is a major mistake. I wonder sometimes how some reporter’s sleep at night, knowing that what they say or don’t say, leads to so many people dying a lot of times. When you see someone parade a dead child out, and then go through the drama and emotions for the cameras, and this starts riots and people are hurt or killed. Does this not make you just as guilty as the propagandist.
Posted by tb2tb on Thu 3 Aug 2006 at 02:19 PM